Episode 59 Show Notes- Some Early Lessons of the Coronavirus Pandemic
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Episode Description
This episode focuses on the early lessons learned from the Coronavirus (COVID19) pandemic. Many parts of the country are under lockdowns, our economy is closed, and our livelihoods have changed dramatically. America always rises to the challenge, and we will defeat the virus. However, it is important to examine what could have been done better and what we need to do going forward.
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Intro
Welcome to The P.A.S. Report Podcast. This is your host Nick Giordano and I hope you are having a good week.
This week I want to focus on some early lessons of the Coronavirus pandemic. There are always areas of improvement that exist. Also, we are going to face significant challenges going forward and we have to prepare for what lies ahead.
This pandemic should open everyone’s eyes to the lack of preparedness. It’s important to correct the record as it pertains to emergency management, pandemics, and federalism.
But before I jump right in, go to thepasreport.com to see the show notes, sign up for The P.A.S. Report Newsletter, and go see the post with Gordon Chang’s interview because he provided great insights.
Early response efforts
I want to start off by saying this pandemic did not necessarily catch us off guard. In fact, we knew something was going on in China towards the end of December, and throughout January and February, the conditions in China deteriorated.
The Communist regime of China made things worse, by at first trying to cover up the virus, and then by refusing to turn over critical information about the virus. What’s worse is throughout the month of January, President Trump offered to send a CDC team of experts over to China, yet China rejected those offers several times. (NY Times) In fact, we have teams in the Epidemic Intelligence Service that can deploy anywhere in the world within 24 hours.
These rejections came from the top leadership in China. The communist leadership was worried that the country would be perceived as weak if they request help from the international community. More importantly, China wants its power to rival that of the United States. How can you consider yourself a superpower able to challenge the United States, if they need help from the United States?
I know the last few weeks I have been harping on China, but this Communist regime needs to be held accountable for their lies and deception that have caused tens of thousands of lives, destroyed the global economy, and wrecked the U.S. economy.
It still baffles me that there are people out there praising this regime, and how they handled this pandemic. It’s almost as if they are receiving their talking points directly from the communist party. A communist party that has been one of the most brutal regimes throughout history and has killed tens of millions of people inside China. History will judge, and if we thought the Stalin regime was bad, just wait.
Now imagine for a second China never tried to cover up the virus. Imagine they allowed the CDC experts into the country earlier. Imagine they provided the samples of the Coronavirus that we repeatedly requested. We would still be living our lives. Instead, we are confined to our homes for an untold number of weeks. Our economy is destroyed. Many people’s personal economies are destroyed. Kids are not in school, and our way of life has been completely disrupted.
Outsourcing
While we are on the topic of China, we learned that outsourcing manufacturing, especially when it’s for life-sustaining things like pharmaceuticals, is a really bad idea. This has proven to be a huge national security threat that needs to be immediately rectified. We cannot rely on other countries and we need to bring our manufacturing back to the United States, or at least spread the risk to multiple countries. We cannot depend on the communist regime to produce our goods.
Where were our early failures?
However, I don’t want to harp on China too much. I will continue to call them out and call for accountability, but I want to focus on our failures and what we need to do going forward.
The idea of a borderless world, without any checks in place, has proven to be a disaster. In my World Politics course, I have been warning about how unfettered globalization can lead to a pandemic. The coronavirus was on our radar in December. President Trump ordered a travel ban on January 31 on anyone traveling from China to the United States. People don’t realize it, but this was a big deal. The administration made two critical failures.
We knew that something bad was happening in mid-January. On January 17, the CDC dispatched staff to three airports to screen passengers arriving from China. We should have done a travel ban much earlier, and we should have told Americans not to travel to China. Now, what bothers me is those who criticize the administration for not taking this seriously, yet they were all calling the President racist and xenophobic the second he ordered the ban. Now, these same morons want to complain.
And many of the headlines from the same papers that routinely bash the President, all downplayed the coronavirus and stated that the President was overstepping his bounds.
Here are a few headlines:
Who says it’s not safe to travel to China
Get a Grippe, America, the flu is a much bigger threat than coronavirus, for now
Perspective: How our brains make coronavirus seem scarier than it is
Why we should be skeptical of China’s coronavirus quarantine
Why we should be wary of an aggressive government response to coronavirus
Coronavirus is scary, but the flu is deadlier, more widespread
Want to protect yourself from coronavirus? Do the same things you do every winter
New coronavirus spreads more like flu than SARS
New coronavirus is likely to go pandemic, but that’s no reason to panic or overreact
The virus killing U.S. kids isn’t the one dominating the headlines
Experts say the new coronavirus may be no more dangerous than the flu despite worldwide alarm
Once again, I can go on and on. These headlines are from outlets like the NY Times, Washington Post, Axios, Reuters, USA Today, the AP, ABC, and more. The same ones that were blasting the President as racist for taking harsh measures, are the same ones that criticize him today for not being proactive enough.
Unfortunately, many of us only look at things through a partisan lens, a political prism.
We also had political leaders throughout the country, from Mayor DeBlasio to Speaker Pelosi, telling people
I call it as I see it, and I have been on the frontlines. We should have done a ban earlier, but the real failure was to assume that the coronavirus wasn’t already widespread in the United States. This failure set us back a month, and that’s inexcusable. (NY Times)
Testing
Another failure was the testing capabilities of the United States. Now I can partly blame China because they would not turn over the COVID19 samples that would have allowed us to develop the testing kits much sooner. But the CDC is also to blame. Rather than bring in the private sector to assist in developing test kits, especially rapid test kits, and instead of letting the laboratories test for it on their own, the CDC wanted to do all testing in house. There was also bureaucratic red tape that stood in the way between the FDA and the CDC. (NY Times)
Once test kits were designed, there were tight restrictions on who can get the test. The FDA, and its regulations, made it tougher for hospitals, clinics, and labs to deploy the tests. This was a huge failure and that’s why I can’t stand the bureaucracy. Time and time again the bureaucracy has proven its failures. The bureaucracy is inefficient and is largely ineffective when the red tape isn’t cut.
This is where President Trump should have immediately stepped in. President Trump has cut hundreds of regulations, so he knows how to do it. He could have very quickly signed an executive order that would have forced the CDC and the FDA to include the private sector to develop test kits and make them available on a widespread basis.
And testing is still a problem because we still don’t have an accurate picture of the virus. We should be conducting random testing in geographic areas. We know that many people are asymptomatic and show mild symptoms.
In fact, Iceland decided to conduct more large-scale testing, and this is something we should be mirroring. Never in my life did I ever think I would be comparing Iceland with the United States, but we aren’t in normal times. However, the tests in Iceland show a few things. Now keep in mind, these are preliminary results, but out of all those that tested positive, nearly half didn’t have any symptoms. (COVID) This also jives with an Italian survey that conducted the test on an entire Italian town, VO. The results showed that more than 50% of those who tested positive showed no symptoms. (ZME Science)
These numbers are extremely important because if 50% of the people are asymptomatic, it changes the conversation dramatically. If we are only identifying 50% of those with coronavirus, and it’s only because they show symptoms, how does that affect the mortality rate? If I take the reported numbers, the mortality rate is about 1.8%. However, if I account for those who are not showing symptoms, but do have the virus, the mortality rate is cut nearly in half. It doesn’t mean that I am downplaying the virus, it may require a different response.
Funding for Emergency Management & Public Health Preparedness
Another problem is funding for emergency management and public health programs. I am going to separate this out in a couple of ways. We have heard a lot of talk about the President cutting the CDC’s budget. However, this is a lie. Now the President did want and proposed to cut the CDC’s budget. However, the CDC’s budget has actually increased under the Trump Presidency. These people that push this myth are knowingly lying. (Factcheck)
In fact, the ones who have been slashing budgets for emergency management and public health preparedness are the states. If we look at the states, the further away we move from disasters, the more the politicians’ look to cut emergency management programs, and they do this for several reasons. First, people don’t pay attention to emergency management budgets. It’s an easy target for politicians. They wouldn’t dare cut the sacred cow programs of education or highway funding. If they cut those programs, people become enraged. So they cut the programs that are not at the forefront, and then when disaster strikes, that’s when we say they need more money.
Another reason they cut these programs first is because of the number of federal grant dollars available for homeland security and emergency management. See, states have grown reliant on federal dollars. Federal grants to states are like crack to a drug addict. As the federal government pumps more money to the state, the state will then shift money they had allocated for emergency management to the education system. That allows the politicians to go out and campaign on how much they care about the children and how they were able to increase the education budget.
This is the dirty little secret that’s not being discussed.
State reliance on the federal government
Also, the reliance on the federal government highlights the deficiencies of the states when it comes to preparedness measures. Ever since the Robert Stafford Act, states have been mostly complacent when it comes to emergency management. And it’s because we incentivize complacency. Every state knows that if they get a Presidential Disaster Declaration, the federal government will pick up 75% of the response costs, and the state and local governments will split 25%. If the disaster is serious enough, the feds will pick up 90% of the response/recovery costs, and the state and local government will be on the hook for 10% of the cost.
What incentive do states have to invest in more supplies and equipment? If they believe that the feds are going to deliver the resources in a disaster, why should the state waste the money?
Take Governor Cuomo. In 2015, the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, and the New York State Department of Health, issued a 272-page report. In this report, it stated that if we faced a pandemic like the 1918 Spanish flu, we would have a shortfall of 15,783 ventilators. The state was clearly aware of this shortfall, yet they did nothing, and I actually understand why. According to reports, this would have cost the state $576 million. That’s not chump change. From an emergency management and public health perspective, get those ventilators and stockpile them. From a political standpoint, that’s a half-a-billion dollar that we can use on programs that people really won’t like education or roadways. Why waste money on ventilators that will sit in a warehouse, when we can use that money on other programs that will reap political dividends?
States need to be better prepared when disaster happens, and people need to realize that government isn’t the be all end all. That we cannot rely on the government for every little thing. Many of us have a vision that when disaster strikes, the government is instantly ready and can respond at all levels efficiently and effectively. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Government is low and awkward, and it can be extremely difficult to navigate in a disaster especially when you have an incident that impacts nearly the entirety of the United States.
And it also illustrates the lack of understanding of emergency management and disaster response. Everyone is looking at the federal government. While the federal government can deliver resources, they don’t run disasters. They are not the ones managing disasters. I said several times on previous episodes that the State and local authorities are the ones that manage and respond to disasters and this is no different. The federal government can help with resources, personnel, and money, but not much more. I find it extremely disturbing that everyone looks towards the feds and wants the federal government to take control. It’s sad that many don’t know the concept of federalism. What’s even worse is how many people are willing to blindly hand the government absolute power.
Stick to the plans and listen to the emergency managers
Another lesson learned is maybe you want to start listening to the emergency managers more. See politicians immediately try to take control because they don’t want to be caught flatfooted, but the reality is the emergency managers and public health officials know what they are doing. These are the ones that do this day in and day out. We had plans in place to respond to a pandemic in New York, and it appears that the politicians never even looked at it.
For pandemics, resources should have started to be sourced two months ago, and phased activation levels should have kicked in. The idea that we had to shut down our entire economy is ridiculous. Had this been handled the way the plans were written, we would be having a much different conversation today. Now, I cannot publish the plans we worked on because of agreements I had to sign, but I can tell you a complete shutdown was never in the cards.
The Economy
We are going to face some real struggles in the month ahead, and we need to learn from this pandemic so that we never have to shut the economy down like this again. I can tell you now, that the economy will get far worse.
I can’t stand when people say that if you talk about the economy or are concerned about it, then you don’t care about human life. You realize, these are the same people who are pushing for 3rd term and partial-birth abortions. The reality is we can do both, protect and preserve life, and preserve the economy at the same time. It is incumbent on us to try and save every life. It’s also important to ensure our economic vitality.
My worry isn’t about large corporations. It’s about the individual economies I care about. Those who lost or will lose a job. Those who lost or will lose their business. Those are the ones that concern me. The people that now have to struggle to figure out a way to pay their bills who are truly frightened right now because they don’t know how they are going to pay their bills or put food on the table in a few weeks. You say you care about public health; well how does public health deteriorate as people become impoverished?
And then you have these a-holes that will try to shame anyone that brings up the economy. But here’s the thing, how long does everyone think you can shut down the economy like this? I hate to break it to everyone, but if the economy is shut down for 3, 4, 5, 6-months, we won’t have a country. Just watch Italy because soon you are going to see the riots break out. You can only keep people inside for so long. Human beings are social creatures; we are not designed to close ourselves off from others. We need interaction. We need to work. We need to go to school and learn. The longer the shutdown, the more you increase the chances of societal breakdowns.
Obviously, politicians lack any creativity when it comes to developing stimulus packages that spur economic growth.
If we really want to inject stimulus and inject the economy with steroids, now would be a good time to do the largest infrastructure rebuilding plan that brings our outdated 1950’s infrastructure into the 21st century. That would certainly help and maybe well-worth the investment if done right.
Closing
And while I am calling for a major rebuilding of American infrastructure, I do believe that the biggest lesson is that we need to get our fiscal house in order at all levels, from the individual to the businesses and corporations to the federal, state and local governments.
Our government has been spending money like it’s nothing. To them, it’s monopoly money and they have no regard for how taxpayer dollars are spent. Many states and local governments were in fiscal distress, and now they have very little revenue coming in. We need to wake up because if we go bankrupt as a city or state or country, the coronavirus will look like a joke compared to the suffering that’s about to happen.
Now there are going to be a ton of lessons that can be learned, and they will evolve over the coming weeks, months, and even years. We will learn more about what took place behind the scenes, what the government did or didn’t do, and as the After-Action Reports are developed, I will discuss them on this podcast.
I want to make a quick announcement. On April 2nd at 7:30EST. The presentation will begin at 8. I will be part of a panel presentation on Zoom discussing the Electoral College and the Integrity of Our Elections. This is being hosted by the Queens Village Republican Club and if you are interested in watching the presentation, email info@qvgop.org.
As always if there is a topic or issue you would like me to focus on, send an email to podcast@pasreport.com.
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Thank you for joining us, stay safe, and I’ll be back next week.
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